If Maria Miller is so worried about porn, why won't she act?

Better Sex Education campaign: Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, has
broken her silence on the need for schools to help children deal with the
effects of online porn. But her words are empty, just like the hall she
spoke them in to at Conservative Party Conference, writes Cathy Newman.

Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport Maria Miller addresses a near-empty hall at the Conservative Party Conference
Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA

That the Culture Secretary has decided, for the first time, to speak out about the need for schools to "help young people navigate their responsibilities in this area" is a milestone of sorts.

It's just a shame that in the next breath she's laid the burden of responsibility on teachers, parents and the internet companies themselves. It would have been the perfect opportunity for Mrs Miller to pledge Government support on this issue - as her boss the Prime Minister has.

That's a pretty big omission. And MPs, unions and children's charities are calling for the anomaly to be corrected. Some head teachers say that four-year-olds should be alerted to the dangers of porn.

You can understand why talking to such young children about porn makes some uneasy.

But as the PM's adviser on the sexualisation of children, Claire Perry, pointed out this week: "babies can swipe iPads", so when it comes to educating your children about the internet "you can't, in some ways, start young enough".

That's a message that appears to be falling on deaf ears at the highest echelons of government. Never mind that more than 45,000 people have signed theTelegraph petition, and that the PM himself gets it. Apparently his Education Secretary, Michael Gove, doesn't.

He's concluded that "the right thing to do is to trust teachers", and worries that new guidance would soon be rendered out of date by "new technology or changing social mores".

I suspect his real reservation is that rewriting guidance offends his own particular brand of laissez-faire liberalism.

But the problem is, while the Government refuses to direct teachers on this, the good ones will get it right, but the bad ones won't. And that's a risk many believe we can't afford to take.

Charities warn that children of 11 are becoming addicted to porn which is freely available on the internet. Too many are not learning about sex and relationships in the classroom, but in the warped world they find online.

ChildLine has even said it's seeing an alarming increase in the number of kids calling its helpline after seeing inappropriate images on the web.

As if that's not enough, the campaign group End Violence Against Women has suggested that the inadequacies of sex education is linked to violence against women and girls. Again, it's pointed the finger at the education department for failing to back the Home Office campaign about abusive behaviour in teen relationships.

And at Channel 4, we've investigated the problem of "sexting", where teenage girls are bombarded with requests for naked pictures. They've got no idea how to deal with all this, but if they'd had proper sex education at school they might have a better chance.

So Mrs Miller is raising all the right questions. But she needs to get some answers from her colleague the Education Secretary.

I called her office this morning to ask whether her fringe speech should be interpreted as a promise of support for the Telegraph Wonder Women campaign, or indeed if she would urge Mr Gove to change his mind. So far there's been a deafening silence.

Telegraph Wonder Women is campaigning for better sex education, urging David Cameron to bring sex and relationships education into the 21st century. Sign our petition at change.org/bettersexeducation or email us at bettersexeducation@telegraph.co.uk. Follow the campaign on Twitter: #bettersexeducation, @TeleWonderWomen